Transit Archives - Transform

The Coolest Way to Get to Summer Sports

July 7, 2026/in Blog, Transit/by Laura McCamy

The World Cup brought lots of excitement to the Bay Area. The local matches may be over, but you can still fill your summer calendar with lots of sporting fun. Whether you’re catching a Giants or Valkyries game in San Francisco or going to see the Roots or B’s in Oakland, skip the traffic jams and take public transit or bike to a game.

Here’s how to get to all the summer sporting fun.

The beautiful game

Oakland Roots SC: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Oakland

If the World Cup stoked your soccer fever, there are several local clubs playing matches all summer. The Oakland Roots play at the Coliseum that used to be home to the A’s, which has its very own BART station, and the Capitol Corridor trains to Sacramento and San Jose also stop there. If you come by bike, you can get a free bike valet service, and you can also park scooters and other personal mobility devices. If BART isn’t convenient, several AC Transit lines also serve the Coliseum. More transportation information here.

Bay Football Club: PayPal Park, Santa Clara

Women play great soccer too. Check out the Bay Football Club at PayPal Park. The stadium is walking distance from the Santa Clara Caltrain stop, on several VTA bus lines, and there’s a shuttle from the Berryessa BART Station on game days. The stadium provides free bike parking, but from the description, it might not be valet service. More travel information here.

If that isn’t enough, the San Jose Earthquakes men’s team also plays at PayPal Park.

Baseball

Oakland Ballers: Raimondi Park, Oakland

The A’s may have left Oakland, but the beloved B’s bring the boys of summer to the Town. Home games at Raimondi Park are easily accessible by transit and biking — something that’s been a priority to the team from its inception. Take AC Transit’s 22 or NL line or catch a shuttle from West Oakland BART. The stadium is just a mile from this BART station, and it’s an easy bike ride on Mandela Parkway. There is free bike and scooter valet parking during games. More transportation options here.

San Francisco Giants: Oracle Park

The Giants have home games all summer at Oracle Park on the San Francisco Bay. The fun isn’t limited to the ballpark. Take the ferry from the East Bay or North Bay right to McCovey Cove (buy tickets in advance — the ferries sell out). The ballpark is also a short walk from BART, Caltrain, and the Salesforce Transit Center. Several Muni lines stop within a block or two of the park, and Muni runs gameday shuttles that are free with your gameday ticket. More transit information here.

Biking to Oracle Park is also a breeze, with free valet bike parking at the stadium, nearby bikeshare docks, and bikeways and the San Francisco Bay Trail to get you there safely. If you’re more adventurous, you can kayak to the park and watch the game from McCovey Cove — no ticket needed.

Basketball

Golden State Valkyries: Chase Center, San Francisco

San Francisco’s WNBA team offers exciting basketball all summer at Chase Center. Your Valkyries ticket gives you free Muni rides all day, so you can enjoy San Francisco on transit before or after the game.

Take the Muni T or S train or the 78X bus to the stadium. Muni connects to BART and Caltrain stations, and Caltrain is a 20-minute walk. The Oakland/Alameda Ferry goes to nearby Pier 48 on game days, and there’s also a shuttle from Salesforce Transit Center.

Chase Center also offers free bike valet and nearby bikeshare docks, and it’s close to the San Francisco Bay Trail. More transit information here.

This is only a partial listing of your summer sport options. Enjoy the games, bring sunblock, drink lots of water, and take transit to avoid the traffic!

BART “Air Traffic Controller” Has a Unique View of the Importance of Transit

June 15, 2026/in Blog, Transit/by Laura McCamy

This post also appears on Streetsblog SF.

Kelly Robinson has worked at BART for 30 years, since shortly after she graduated from high school. She thinks of it as the “family business.” Her father started working as a train operator in 1973. (The first segments of the system opened in 1972.) As a child, she’d cut school to joyride with her BART pass. “I’m as BART as it gets,” she said.

Her current position as a rail operations controller (ROC) gives her a bird’s-eye view across the whole system. We spoke with her about what goes on behind the scenes at BART’s control center, her vision for the future of transit, and why she thinks it’s critical to pass the Connect Bay Area measure in November.

BART’s “air traffic control” room

The best way to describe BART’s Operations Control Center, where ROCs work, is to compare it to air traffic control. “We’re in charge of all passenger, employee, and equipment safety,” Robinson said. ROCs control everything trackside except the railyards.

While train operators are the eyes of the system, rail operations controllers are the beating heart and the brains. The ROCs fix mistakes, figure out how to get trains back on schedule and keep trains in sequence, and respond in under a minute when something goes wrong.

“I’ve been doing it now for 17 years. The thing that I like best about my job is that I’m always challenged,” she said. “We have to keep navigating our way through whatever the system is throwing at us that day.”

BART’s ROCs work under pressure, surrounded by monitors that show them the status of trains across the system. When there’s an emergency — train breakdown, switching problem, medical emergency, BART police action, or any other unpredictable situation — Robinson and her coworkers swing into action. They notify other emergency responders, sending help as quickly as possible.

That pressure and the need to think on your feet might be why the position is understaffed. Controllers typically work 12-hour shifts and often work overtime, clocking in as much as 60 hours in a week.

“We’ve seen extremely educated, very smart people fold under that kind of pressure,” Robinson said. “Multitasking is probably an understatement. Most people aren’t built like that.”

Getting people where they need to go

As any BART commuter knows, it’s the fastest way to get across the Bay — and to many other destinations — until something goes wrong. That’s when ROCs are crucial, ensuring everyone stays safe while they resolve the issue.

“Once you have an occurrence like that, we can’t manage that many trains in that area,” she said. “We have to get creative and figure out how to get people where they’re going with a big hurdle in their way.”

Robinson works to figure out how and where to divert traffic so trains don’t get stuffed into the Transbay Tube. She can’t get everyone to their destination on time, but her job is to figure out how to serve as many passengers as possible around the blockage. The airport is the first priority. She looks at where she can get people to stations where they can transfer to other lines.

“What people don’t know is how important it is for us to react to isolate an incident area,” Robinson said. Her goal is always to make the incident area as small as possible, which means keeping other trains out of harm’s way.

The job is often stressful, but Robinson said, “I love it. I feel like I can make a difference to someone’s day.”

Best- and worst-case BART scenarios

As a lifelong BART rider and operator, Kelly Robinson is keenly aware of the vital role transit plays in people’s lives. She’s been talking up the Connect Bay Area ballot measure to anyone who’ll listen, and many of her fellow AFSCME union members were among the more than 1,000 people who gathered signatures to place the measure on the ballot as a citizen initiative.

BART currently runs trains with 20-minute headways; if the funding measure fails, passengers could wait 60 minutes between trains, and many stations would be forced to close. “Not having the funding would send us in a spiral in the wrong direction,” Robinson said.

When asked about her vision for the future of BART, Robinson lays out a bold vision that starts with 10-minute headways but goes much further. “When BART was created, it was state of the art. The entire world was reveling in this transit system,” she said. “With our extensions, I would have liked to see all-new technology.”

“I’d like to be SpaceX,” Robinson said. “I’d like to see the Bay Area introduce transit that hasn’t been seen before.”

Imagine a world where we spent as much time, money, and brainpower innovating transit for people as we do trying to put a few people into outer space. The Connect Bay Area ballot measure won’t provide SpaceX-level funding, but it’s a big step toward a brighter transit future for the Bay Area.

The Ongoing Fight for California’s Climate

May 26, 2026/in Blog, Climate Change, Housing, Transit/by Zack Deutsch-Gross

Last year, Transform was part of a coalition of environmental justice, climate, transportation, and affordable housing groups that worked with the governor and legislature to ensure California renewed its Cap-and-Invest Program that funds vital housing, transportation, and environmental justice programs. We won.

But our victory didn’t last. Surprise proposed rule changes from the California Air Resources Board in April would drastically cut Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) revenue, taking all funding from the Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities Program (AHSC), the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP), and the Low Carbon Transit Operations Program (LCTOP).

How we got here

In the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers were scheduled to set the terms for reauthorizing California’s Cap-and-Trade Program, which would have expired in 2030. The program charges polluters and continuously reduces the cap on greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of reducing and ultimately reversing climate change.

Instead, under Governor Gavin Newsom’s direction, the program reauthorization was immediate, taking effect in 2026. The new Cap-and-Invest Program assumed roughly $4 billion in annual revenue to the GGRF, allocated in descending priority:

The first $1 billion goes to High-Speed Rail.
The legislature allocates the next $1 billion at its discretion to a variety of emissions-reducing projects through the budget process each year.
The final $2 billion is allocated to so-called “continuous appropriations” programs like AHSC, TIRCP, LCTOP, plus $250 million to CARB for programs to curb air pollution, $130 million for safe drinking water, and $200 million to the Department of Forestry for firefighting.

If Cap-and-Invest revenue falls short, funding disappears from the bottom up. Under CARB’s proposed rule changes, revenue for GGRF is expected to be $2 billion — no money for affordable housing, low-carbon transit, or intercity rail.

Rulemaking bait and switch

CARB oversees Cap-and-Invest and periodically makes rules governing the program. The agency initially proposed amendments to the Cap-and-Invest regulations in January 2026. These changes would have updated allowance budgets through 2045, providing a narrow incentive program to keep manufacturing in the state while keeping California on track to meet its 2030 climate goals.

Then, in April, without warning, CARB issued revised amendments, including a major rule change that would drastically increase the number of free allowances given to polluters, reducing revenue and increasing climate-killing emissions.

California’s green mirage

As of this writing, the price of crude oil sits at around $100/barrel, almost twice its price last fall when lawmakers finalized the Cap-and-Invest legislation. Oil companies are reaping windfall profits, yet CARB is giving them extra carbon credits at the price of defunding programs that effectively decarbonize our environment and improve quality of life for average Californians.

California has a reputation for being a leader on the environment and climate change, and in many respects, that reputation is deserved. However, the same regressive forces push against change in our energy and transportation sectors here as everywhere. Our governmental bodies can fall prey to that pressure, changing rules to shovel more money into the pockets of the privileged while disinvesting in the lives of the majority.

How we fight back

When we first conceived of this post, we expected to talk about the ongoing benefits from last year’s legislative victory. CARB’s actions show how our advances can get reversed; this is why Transform remains connected to coalitions actively working to ensure climate justice in California.

Our state won’t change without pressure from groups like Transform and people like you. Please take action with the letter campaign below. Please note: the letter is somewhat technical to address the CARB rulemaking process; it addresses the Cap-and-Invest funding rules and demands CARB not increase allowances to Big Oil.

Fate of Affordable Housing Linked to Transit

May 13, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Transit/by Laura McCamy

On May 11, 2026, Transform gathered advocates from four affordable housing organizations to talk about why their groups are collecting signatures to put the regional transit measure on the November ballot and training residents to advocate for transit as well as affordable housing. Sophia DeWitt from East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO), Kenneth Javier-Rosales from SV@Home, Ken Chan from the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, and Quintin Mecke with the Coalition of Community Housing Developers in San Francisco were hosted by Transform’s Zack Deutsch-Gross.

Before the discussion, Amourence Lee added the funder perspective for the San Francisco Foundation, and EBHO’s Board President, William Goodwin, framed the importance of Affordable Housing Month as an opportunity to talk about solutions and EBHO’s role as convener of this month’s events in Alameda County.

Affordable housing residents rely on public transit

Public transit provides affordable housing residents with an economical way to get around. DeWitt noted that she’s a “transit-dependent rider,” as are many people in the Bay Area, for whom saving transit is vital. “Transit moves the Bay Area,” she said.

Mecke agreed, noting that transit was foundational to affordable housing residents. “These are folks who do not have remote jobs,” he said. While overall Muni ridership is down, some lines are at 120% of pre-pandemic ridership, demonstrating the lifeline that transit provides for many San Francisco residents.

All the housing advocates reported the enthusiasm among their groups for collecting signatures for the transit measure. It’s clear to housers that transit is key to affordable housing, including its funding.

Affordable housing funding tied to transit

Several of California’s affordable housing funding mechanisms score projects partly on their proximity to rich public transit. If Bay Area transit providers are forced to cut routes or reduce service due to funding shortfalls, affordable housing projects will become less competitive. Put bluntly: without transit, we’ll lose a lot of affordable housing.

Deutsch-Gross noted that the communities all the organizations on the webinar serve are populated by whole people, who need transportation as well as housing. He highlighted the value of signature-gathering, not only as a mechanism to put the regional transit measure on the ballot with a lower threshold to pass, but also as an opportunity to engage and educate the community. “Those conversations are so much more important to the world we want to see than just gathering signatures,” he said.

The conversation included a discussion of advocates’ vision for a future where transportation and housing funding aren’t hanging by a thread every election cycle. Watch the recording for much more.

View the presentation.

Connect Bay Area_ How Housers Are Helping to Save Transit Download

AC Transit, Muni, Caltrain Predict Service Collapse Without More Funding

April 14, 2026/in Blog, Transit/by Zack Deutsch-Gross

In February, BART released an alarming report outlining the service cuts it would need to make if Bay Area voters don’t pass a transit funding measure in November. Now, several other service providers are speaking up about future cuts without more funding, and the picture they paint is dire.

Muni: Cutting 20 bus routes

The trains, trolleys, and buses operated by Muni give San Franciscans more than half a million rides every day. In a city with notoriously limited parking, public transit is essential.

Muni was already forced to make cuts in 2025. If it doesn’t get more funding, it faces a budget shortfall of $307 million in the fiscal year starting this July. Waymos and rideshares can’t take the place of missing buses; more private cars on the city’s already-crowded streets would lead to permanent gridlock.

To close the shortfall without additional funding, Muni would need to:

Cut 20 bus routes
Start limited late-night OWL service at 9 p.m. and run it until 6 a.m.
Reduce or cut historic trolleys and cable cars
Reduce the frequency of trains and buses
Lay off up to 2,000 employees

*Source: Muni and Street Safety Impacts without Necessary Funding*

AC Transit: 16% service cuts

AC Transit operates buses in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, providing around 150,000 rides daily. The 2025 realignment was implemented to boost ridership by delivering better frequency with improved connections for more reliable bus lines. Closing a looming $50 million operating deficit would require more painful reductions that undermine their new strategy to grow ridership.

AC Transit hasn’t yet announced which bus routes might be cut, but it could be forced to reduce service by up to 16.4% and lay off 300 employees.

*Source: AC Transit press release, March 26, 2026*

Caltrain: Closing 30% of stations

Caltrain provides transportation through the heart of Silicon Valley, running the route from downtown San Jose to downtown San Francisco, with connections to BART, Amtrak, and many local bus routes. It serves an area that’s home to more than one-third of the Bay Area’s residents, providing around 42,000 rides daily.

The operator recently replaced its diesel train fleet with electric trains, providing faster and more reliable service. But this improvement could be undone by annual projected operating deficits of $75 million.

Without additional funding, Caltrain will need to:

Reduce frequency of service
Eliminate weekend service
Stop service at 9 p.m.
Close 30% of its stations
Cut some service segments

*Source: Caltrain Board Budget Workshop, April 2, 2026*

It doesn’t have to happen

These predictions are probably too optimistic. Bay Area transit systems are symbiotic, with riders often using multiple operators or routes to get to their destinations. If BART is forced to make drastic cutbacks, fewer people will ride AC Transit, Muni, and Caltrain, sending all the systems into a downward spiral.

It’s essential to put a citizen-led funding measure on the ballot for November’s election. If you haven’t already signed the petition to get the measure on the ballot, please sign it. Volunteers are collecting signatures at local farmers markets, BART stations, transit hubs, and events. Better yet, join the volunteers and help us gather the 200,000 signatures we need to put a measure on the ballot to fully fund Bay Area transit.

New Clipper START Partnership Makes Enrollment Easier

March 31, 2026/in Blog, Transit/by Laura McCamy

A new partnership between the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the California Department of Technology will soon make it much easier for riders to qualify for Clipper START, the region’s 50% fare discount program for low-income riders. This partnership was something Transform specifically called out in our latest report: Fair and Accessible Fares: Economic Justice in Transit.

Making it easier to access discounted fares

Transit riders are more likely than the general population to be low-income. Offering discounted fares makes essential transportation more affordable for the people who need it the most. But barriers, such as excessive paperwork or the need to apply in person, can prevent people with limited time and resources from accessing these benefits.

In our report, we suggested that all transit agencies use existing eligibility verification systems, such as those for Medi-Cal or CalFresh, to automatically verify eligibility for discounted fare programs. California’s Digital Identity gateway makes sharing income information easy and secure. MTC’s partnership with the California Department of Technology (CDT) moves this recommendation forward by simplifying and automating the verification process for CalFresh recipients who apply for Clipper START, which gives income-qualified riders half-price fares across Bay Area transit agencies. The automated process means riders already enrolled in CalFresh don’t have to submit as much information and may be approved for Clipper START as quickly as the same day.

The integration is still ramping up, but the slides from MTC below show a steady uptick in rider enrollments.

CDT Pilot Clipper START – Public Download

More ways to boost ridership and enrollment

In our report, we noted the disappointing rollout of Clipper START. The program had low adoption in its first five years. As we noted in the report, only 57,000 out of 1 million eligible riders enrolled during that time.

That’s why, in addition to using existing verification systems to reduce friction in the Clipper START application process, Transform continues to recommend additional ways to boost lackluster Clipper START enrollment:

Partner with social service providers to promote it to the communities they serve.
Extend the eligibility term beyond two years so riders don’t have to reapply as often.
Do outreach at retail locations where riders reload Clipper cards.
Seek additional funding for the program.

In recent months, however, the MTC has given Clipper START a boost with more ads aimed at transit riders. Now, the program is implementing one of the suggestions from Transform’s report, which should lead to greater uptake of this critical program.

Transform’s Leadership on Transit-Oriented Communities

March 9, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Transit/by Julia Gerasimenko

Last month, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) finalized the framework for the Bay Area’s Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy. The framework will guide how cities qualify for regional transportation funding based on their progress toward building housing near transit.

While the vote marks an important milestone, the TOC Policy is the result of more than two decades of advocacy to align transportation investments with housing, climate, and equity goals. Transform has been part of that effort from the beginning in the Bay Area, championing transit-oriented development as a housing, climate, and equity solution.

Spearheading a movement for transit-oriented development

In the early 2000s, the Bay Area was expanding its transit system but often failed to plan communities around it. New stations were frequently surrounded by parking lots or low-density zoning rather than homes, stores, and comfortably walkable streets.

In 2004, Transform helped lead a regional coalition that released It Takes a Village, a report calling for stronger regional policies to support dense, walkable neighborhoods near transit. The report argued that transit investments should be paired with housing density, limits on excessive parking structures, and safer walking and biking access to stations. It found that Bay Area residents would save over $1.8 billion annually on transportation costs — an average of $600 per household — through transit-oriented development. We would save billions more indirectly from reduced health costs, less time lost to congestion, and a stronger tax base.

Those ideas helped shape the region’s first transit-oriented development policy, adopted by MTC in 2005. While groundbreaking at the time, the policy applied primarily to new transit stations and offered few incentives for cities to adopt supportive land use policies.

Fewer parking spots, more transit

Over the following years, Transform and our partners continued pushing the region to connect transportation investments with housing outcomes. Through research, coalition advocacy, and reports such as Parking Revolution: Housing Solution, Transform highlighted how parking requirements and car-oriented land use policies were limiting the potential of transit investments and making housing more expensive across the Bay Area.

At the same time, regional planning efforts like Plan Bay Area reinforced the need for more homes near transit as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support affordable, walkable communities.

These efforts ultimately helped lead to the adoption of MTC’s Transit-Oriented Communities Policy in 2022. The updated policy expanded the scope of the earlier TOD framework and established expectations for local jurisdictions around housing density near transit, affordable housing production and preservation, parking management, and safe access for people walking, biking, and taking transit.

Just as importantly, the policy began linking progress on these goals to eligibility for regional transportation funding.

Transform continues to campaign for policies supporting infill development

The Bay Area has invested billions of dollars in transit infrastructure. To fully realize the benefits of those investments, the region must also build the homes and neighborhoods that allow people to live near transit and rely less on cars.

In recent months, MTC’s votes on January 28 and February 25 helped solidify how the TOC Policy will interact with major regional funding programs like the One Bay Area Grant, reinforcing the principle that transportation funding should support communities planning to co-locate housing with sustainable transportation.

For Transform, the TOC Policy reflects a long-standing belief that transportation and housing policy must work together. The work to implement the TOC Policy continues, but the progress made so far shows what sustained regional advocacy can achieve. Transform will continue working with partners across the Bay Area to ensure that the policy delivers more affordable homes, stronger communities, and a transportation system that works for everyone.

MTC Links Funding to Sustainable Communities Policy for the First Time with $45M Incentive Program

February 25, 2026/in Blog, Climate Change, Housing, Press Releases, Transit/by Julia Gerasimenko

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 25, 2026

Contact: Zack Deutsch-Gross, [email protected], (415) 637-0101

San Francisco – Today, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission formally adopted the Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Incentive Program, setting aside $45 million in One Bay Area Grant (OBAG 4) funds to reward cities that adopt housing, parking, and transportation policies that support the building of homes near transit.

Transform applauds MTC’s decision to maintain a strong link between transit and housing through its TOC Policy and OBAG grants. Building new housing near transit is proven to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, and transportation costs, making it one of the most effective ways to combat climate change.

This vote finalizes an evaluation framework first considered when MTC adopted its original TOC Policy in 2022. The program establishes a 100-point scoring system across four priority categories: density, housing production and tenant protections, parking management, and station access. Jurisdictions must meet scoring thresholds to qualify for OBAG 4 incentive funds.

“As a regional leader and a steward of significant public resources, MTC has a responsibility to advance our collective regional transit, housing, climate, and equity goals,” said Zack Deutsch-Gross, executive director of Transform. “The Commission’s vote today showed real leadership in leveraging regional dollars to support local policies that contribute to those goals.”

The TOC Incentive Program follows MTC’s January approval of the broader OBAG 4 framework, which set aside the funding for the next round of grants. With today’s vote, jurisdictions can apply for grants from the $45 million in OBAG 4 funds if they demonstrate compliance with TOC standards across the four categories. The deadline to qualify for grant funding has been extended to July 1, 2027.

The original TOC Policy, adopted in September 2022, was designed to better align land use and planning decisions within a half mile of transit areas with the Bay Area’s climate, transportation, economic, and housing goals, as articulated in Plan Bay Area. Since then, MTC has debated how tightly to tie transportation funding to specific policies that advance these goals. Today’s vote represents a victory for advocates who have urged the Commission to use OBAG funding as a means to encourage communities to develop affordable, equitable, transit-oriented housing.

“For years, Transform has pushed MTC to tie transportation funding to integrated policy outcomes near transit stations, including tenant protections and smarter parking policies. Today’s vote makes that linkage real,” said Deutsch-Gross.

New BART Report Shows Drastic Service Cuts if Funding Measure Doesn’t Pass

February 17, 2026/in Blog, Transit/by Laura McCamy

Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, is the connective tissue of the Bay Area transit systems. Serving residents in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties, BART provides rail service that is often faster than driving and connects to other bus and train systems throughout its network. Communities revolve around BART stations, with homes and businesses creating walkable neighborhoods centered on access to transit hubs.

All that could change next year if Bay Area voters don’t pass a regional measure this November. The measure would shore up funding for public transit by providing a long-term, stable funding solution. A recent report from BART detailed drastic service cuts the operator would be forced to make as it faces a huge funding shortfall.

In this post, we examine the potential effects of a BART cutback and the solution.

The core: BART connects the region

Two-thirds of jobs in the Bay Area are within a 15-minute walk of a BART station. This isn’t by accident; businesses often locate near BART to attract workers from across the region. In addition, 61% of residents live within a 15-minute walk of a station. That’s 800,000 jobs and 670,000 residents in close proximity to BART.

The system serves many more than those who live or work within a short walk. BART has points of connection with over 300 other transit routes. Bay Area transit transfers include a leg on BART 87% of the time.

In the near future, even more residents and businesses will be colocated with BART, as the agency undertakes transit-oriented developments on station property in Oakland, Berkeley, and El Cerrito. BART is a vital resource that knits the Bay Area’s diverse communities together.

The crisis: cuts BART will make without more operating funds

If the regional transit measure doesn’t pass, BART will face immediate and serious budget shortfalls in 2027. This could lead to the closure of as many as 15 stations, the complete closure of two routes (the Red Richmond/Daly City and the Green Berryessa/Daly City), and closing BART at 9 p.m.

Imagine a Bay Area where the last BART train was at 9 p.m., or where there was only one train an hour. Many people would drive instead, slowing down our already congested roadways and increasing Bay Bridge traffic by as much as 73%. Those who have no alternatives would spend more time in transit, have less flexibility, and either curtail their activities or risk being stranded without a way to get home.

Without more funding, BART might have to reduce its service area to what it was in 1976 — four years after it opened. And, if no additional funding becomes available in the future, BART might ultimately be forced to cease operations.

The impact: effects of a BART cutback on commuters and other transit systems

If BART ceases or limits operations, the cutbacks will have a ripple effect on the region’s 26 other transit operators, almost all of which have routes serving BART stations. If BART ceases to be a viable transit option, fewer people will ride the buses and trains that connect with BART, and other service providers may need to cut back on routes and services. An unhealthy BART system could bring down much of the Bay Area’s transit infrastructure with it.

The human cost of reduced or missing BART service will be enormous. The trains that still run will be more crowded, especially during peak times. Missing your train for work won’t mean waiting five minutes for the next one; workers and employers will suffer from the delays this will cause.

A night out on the town could become prohibitively expensive if BART stops running at 9 p.m. Instead of a $7 round trip to San Francisco, people would have to drive and pay $20 or more for parking, or take an expensive ride-share to get home. This could make the trip too costly, especially for young people, with the economic impacts rippling out to bars, restaurants, and other nightlife venues.

People who have never ridden a BART train will feel the repercussions as well. Traffic on the Bay Bridge and other Bay Area roadways will go from sluggish to stagnant as more residents choose to drive, doubling or tripling the time needed to get from one part of the region to another. For example, the round trip from El Cerrito to San Francisco could go from about 1.5 hours to over 4 hours, making it time-prohibitive for many people.

The solution: passing a ballot measure to fund transit

Transit has faced funding issues since everything closed down for the pandemic in 2020. While ridership has returned, lingering revenue shortfalls and a lack of state and federal funding have made it difficult for Bay Area transit operators to maintain robust service.

Transform, as part of Voices for Public Transportation, has worked for several years on transit funding solutions. That has culminated in a regional transit measure headed for the ballot this November. The measure will impose a half-cent sales tax to fund transit operations and improvements in four Bay Area counties: Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra Costa. The measure provides for a 1-cent sales tax in San Francisco to fund the city’s struggling Muni service.

Signature gathering is underway now to place the measure on the ballot. We’ll be working hard before November to help voters understand why this measure is essential and they should vote yes to fund transit.

View the presentation from BART.

02-12-2026 BART importance to the region slides Download

Transform Hosts Statewide Transit Convening

February 17, 2026/in Blog, Policy, Transit/by Zack Deutsch-Gross

On Transit Equity Day this year, Transform convened advocates from throughout the state for a two-day gathering in Los Angeles to build the power to fund California transit. Co-convened with our partners at Move California, Climate Plan, Public Advocates, Organize Sacramento, ACT LA, and 350 San Diego, advocates from throughout the state gathered, brainstormed, and organized to chart a path forward for a more equitable, rider-centered transit future in California.

California’s transit systems are at a crossroads. We know we need significant investment and modernization across the state to deliver the transit service our communities and climate need. And with state and federal transportation funding in flux, a new governor on the horizon, and many regions pushing up against the limits of sales tax funding, it’s clear we need a statewide approach to sustainable transit funding.

Connect Bay Area as a model for transit funding

Transform played a key role in the conference, presenting on our Connect Bay Area work to save public transit locally and sharing lessons learned for other advocates throughout the state. We were also thrilled to be joined at the conference by labor leaders from the Bay Area and Los Angeles, whose worker power will be essential to passing a statewide transit funding measure.

By leaning into strategic coordination across transit unions and policy and grassroots organizations, the conference fueled a nascent but powerful movement focused on delivering stable funding in California. It was exciting to see so many participants with deep relationships throughout the state and a proven history of working in coalition with transit unions at the conference, and to hear about how we’re already delivering transit wins at the regional and local level.

While we still have a long way to go, Transform staff left feeling inspired and fired up to pass our own ballot measure. Success in the Bay Area won’t be the end of this campaign. We will continue organizing for statewide solutions that allow everyone to thrive with fast, frequent, and reliable public transit.